Beauty and the Beast

For more that a few years, the NMRA BFGoodrich Drag Radial class has been taking the Mustang scene by storm. Five-liter Drag Racing pioneers such as Dwayne "Big Daddy" Gutridge and '02 Drag Radial champ Chris Little were pushing their turbocharged and nitrous-fed notchbacks to insane speeds. These racers were running in the low 9-second zone and were doing it with street-legal, drag radial tires out back.

This off-the-wall class caught the attention of a certain female racer. The former Erica Ortiz met and got hitched to Dennis Lugo (and we're not talking trailers here, folks). Dennis Lugo has been at the Mustang game for a very long time and knows exactly what it takes to extract every bit of available performance from these machines.

Dennis, who with Erica owns and operates Lugo Performance in Apopka, Fla., began to show his new bride the ropes of heads-up drag racing and to his surprise she took a real liking to the wild and sometimes unpredictable speed. Before long, a Mustang was available for Erica to purchase and the rest, as they say, is history.

"I came across a '91 LX that a customer of our shop owned," explained Erica. "It was owned by Dennis' friend and had only 16,000 miles on the odometer. The engine combination consisted of a Paxton Novi 2000 blower that was mounted on top of a mild 306 engine and ran fairly well. We soon replaced the tired mill with a Lugo-built 342-stroker and tossed the blower in favor of a turbo. This was the route that we decided on going for the Drag Radial class."

Erica had a fair amount of racing experience in the bracket scene, but had the desire to go heads-up racing in something quicker. The old 306 would never be capable of hanging tough in the Drag Radial class, so it was tossed in favor of a 342. The 342 consists of a 3.4-inch stroke RDI crankshaft, which spins a set of 8.1 J&E pistons and Oliver rods. The machinework was handled by Dave Rumping of nearby Kissimmee, Fla., but the short-block was assembled by hubby Dennis at their Florida-based digs. Finally, the short-block was fitted with a Canton Racing 7-quart oil pan.

No simple cylinder heads would do on this engine, so Dennis went with a set of tried-and-true TFS high port castings. The heads were professionally ported in-house by Dennis and hold Ferrea 2.02-intake and 1.60 exhaust valves, which are put to work with Comp Cams valve springs, a custom and top secret Lugo-designed camshaft and Scorpion roller rocker arms. As impressive as all this hardware is, what really makes it all shine is the custom L.P.A. turbo kit, which is responsible for pressurizing the Vortech Igloo intake manifold (ported at Lugo's by Eddie Burke) with a whopping 16-psi of boost. The turbo has a 76mm impeller size and pumps the boost through an Edelbrock 70mm throttle body and out a set of L.P.A. headers and Flowmaster mufflers. Custom 72-lb. injectors keep the combustion chamber cool and the fire lit in the cylinders.

All of this power is channeled through a C-4 transmission (built by Sundancer Performance in Cleremont, Fla.) that is filled with Performance Automatic goodies and gets shifted via a B&M shifter. The custom torque converter is a Neal Chance two-piece design with a 3500-rpm stall speed and is one of the reasons why the car runs so well considering that the traction is limited with the slippery and hard-to-drive-on drag radials. Out back, you will find the stock 8.8-inch, rear end housing but it has been stuffed with an array of drag racing hardware. A Moser spool and matching axles work in conjunction with Ford Racing 3.73 gears and U.P.R. control arms to generate stunning 1.39 60-ft. times when hard hook is present. So with all of this hardware and potential under Erica's right foot, you are probably wondering how she's been doing? Well, she made it down to only four cars in the Wild Street class at the '02 Mobil 1 World Ford Challenge in St. Louis in May, then won the MM&FF/Edelbrock True Street race at the Fun Ford Weekend in Gainesville, Fla., in June. On top of that, she has runner-upped in different bracket classes throughout the past two years and hopes to be running in the low 8s by the end of the season.

Not only does Erica's steed hold its own on the drag strip, it also proves its street worthiness on a daily basis. "We cruise the car on the streets in Orlando quite a bit," said Erica. "It is very well-mannered on the street, has working air conditioning, which is unheard of on an 8-second racer and even has a booming stereo system to help add to Saturday night cruise nights. It's basically just a lot of fun both on and off the track. The roll bar has removable side bars, which makes it a lot more comfortable to drive."

The turbocharged beast has run a best time of 8.90 at 156 mph and Erica is hanging with the fastest cars in the Drag Radial class. Dennis explained to us that he is in the final stages of building a brand new Fun Ford Outlaw car and Erica is the scheduled driver of that new pony.

"The Drag Radial class has given Erica some much-needed driver control experience," stated Dennis. "Soon she will be able to step into my Outlaw car and hold her own. She handles the pressure very well." FFW Outlaw drivers watch your back. There is some new talent brewing in the Sunshine State and it goes by the name of Erica Lugo.